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Class-Meeting 



Iu Twenty Short Chapters. 



0. P. FITZGERALD, D.D. 



Nashville, Texx. : 
SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 

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|THE LIBRARY 
Of CONGR ESS 
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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

J. B. McFERRIN, Agent, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PREFACE. 



I BELIEVE, and therefore speak. As a fire in 
my bones have been the thoughts given in these 
short chapters. They are offered to the Methodist 
public in the hope and with the prayer that they 
may do good. Believing that Methodists cannot 
afford to give up the Class-meeting, that it can be 
made even more effective as a means of grace than 
ever before, and that it is the duty of all to help in 
this good work, I have prayerfully made this hum- 
ble contribution to a subject that claims the candid 
consideration of all Methodist people. The book 
might have been made larger, but the form and 
method adopted were thought to be best for the 
practical end aimed at. That end is to aid in bring- 
ing about the Class-meeting Kevival, the need of 
which is felt by so many earnest souls throughout 
the Methodist world, and the signs of whose com- 
ing are visible to some. 

THE AUTHOR. 

Nashville, Tenn., April, 1880. 

(3) 



CONTENTS. 



PAOE 

GOD'S METHOD 7 

THE SOCIAL INSTINCT 12 

THE BIBLE TEACHING 17 

NEW TESTAMENT PRACTICE 21 

PREPARATORY 26 

BIRTH OF THE METHODIST CLASS-MEET- 
ING 32 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE CLASS-MEETING 37 

RIGHT ARM OF METHODISM 42 

WEAKENED 46 

STEREOTYPED 49 

NON-ADAPTATIONS. 52 

ONE OF THEM 56 

ANOTHER 59 

AND YET ANOTHER 64 

TYPES 67 

WHAT FORM? 74 

THE WOMAN'S MEETING AT McKENDREE 80 

YOU CAN IF YOU WILL 85 

THE YOUNG PEOPLE 93 

THIRTY THO US AND CLASS-LEADERS 99 

(5) 



GOD'S METHOD. 

IT pleases God to bless his children on the 
earth by making them instruments in 
blessing one another. It is his plan to work 
mainly through intermediate agency and in- 
strumentality. This principle pervades the 
whole system of the divine government. 
Ever and anon God " makes bare his arm," 
making his power to be felt directly in the 
great crises of the world's history. But in 
his infinite wisdom he sees that it is best, as 
a rule, to work mediately rather than imme- 
diately. He educates the human race by 
making it self-helpful. He does nothing for 
it which it can do for itself. Placing ade- 
quate resources within their reach, he leaves 
mankind to use them for the development 
of their faculties, the formation of their char- 
acters, and the attainment of happiness. All 
the elements of a high civilization are latent 
in the constitution of the earth. But God 
lias made no direct revelation of the laws of 

(7) 



8 God 9 8 Method. 

art, or of the principles and facts of science. 
He wrote with his own fingers the law upon 
the tables of stone, but neither painting, 
statue, nor edifice, was ever fashioned di- 
rectly by the divine hand. Bezaleel had the 
spirit of wisdom as an artificer only as a 
quickening influence, as multitudes have had 
it whose souls were responsive to the touches 
of God's Spirit. Art, science, and civilization, 
were in the purpose of God concerning the 
world. In a true sense, he is the Archetype 
of all art, the Pioneer of all science, the 
Source of all civilization. But not by direct 
exercise of the divine energy does he bless 
and adorn human life, and promote human 
progress. The God-man, Jesus Christ, made 
no direct contribution to the sum of human 
knowledge in this sphere. In him were all 
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and 
he might have anticipated, in a single trea- 
tise, all the discoveries of modern science. 
But this was not according to the purpose of 
God to make the human race self-educative 
and self-advancing. Man must work out 
his own destiny. He must climb the ladder 
of progress round by round, and, as he as- 



God 's Method. 9 

cends, gain strength by the exertion, and be 
rewarded for his toil by the subjective bene- 
fits of the struggle. Doing nothing for man 
which he can do for himself, God puts him 
into a world where he finds all things made 
ready to satisfy his inquisitive mind, and to 
develop the skill of his cunning hand. So, 
in subduing the earth, the race educates it- 
self. 

This law holds good with reference to the 
spiritual development of mankind. God does 
nothing for us in this sphere directly which 
we are able to do for ourselves, and for one 
another. He has committed the gospel to 
the ministry, not of angels, but of men. It 
has pleased him, by the foolishness of preach- 
ing, to save them that believe. He has made 
it our duty and privilege to pray for each 
other, putting intercessory prayer on the 
same basis with prayer for ourselves. He 
has ordained that every recipient of his grace 
shall be also a dispenser of it; that every one 
who professes Christ shall also confess him 
before men. The supernatural forces of 
the gospel are to be employed by, and act 
through, human agency. The world is to 



10 God' s Method. 

be converted only so fast as willing workers 
can do it. Men and women are God's agents 
to bring the world to Christ. They are 
Christ's witnesses. They are to tell the good 
news of the gospel. It must go from lip to 
lip, and from heart to heart, until the glad 
sound shall be heard in all the earth, and 

One song employ all nations. 
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks 
Shall shout to each other, and mountain-tops 
From distant mountains catch the flying joy, 
Till, nation after nation taught the strain, 
Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round. 

In this method is the wisdom of God. 
Within and without man are the resources 
which God has placed at his command for 
working out his own salvation. In this 
sphere, as in that of the natural or material, 
God will do nothing for man which man can 
do for himself. The reasons are the same, 
based on the same principles, the expres- 
sion of the same ineffable wisdom and 
goodness. In making the spread of the 
gospel dependent on human agency, God 
shows his recognition of the fact that in this 
way only can the followers of Christ live his 



God's Method. 11 

life, shine in his light, and wear his likeness. 
In teaching, praying for, and persuading the 
world to come to Christ, believers find the 
aliment that nourishes their own souls. In 
such service the blessed Head of the Church 
develops its noblest life, clothes it in its di- 
vinest beauty, and lifts it up to the high 
plane where holy men and women walk with 
him in white. 



THE SOCIAL INSTINCT. 

THE moral nature is a unit. The affec- 
tions are correlated, and their recipro- 
cal influence is one of the marvels of Infinite 
Wisdom and. Goodness. There is no proper 
place for mouasticism or asceticism in the 
Bible, or in healthy human nature. Neither 
in the Old Testament nor the New is there the 
slightest hint that the human soul is to find 
its perfection in isolation from its kind. The 
monastic system had its temporary uses, and. 
has left some names that the world will not 
let die — flowers that bloomed in a desert. 
But it is abnormal, and, having no root in 
human nature, and no warrant from the 
word of the Lord, it must pass away. It has 
made a record in which are miner! ed the light 
of exceptional heroism and saintliness, and 
the shadows of human weakness and sin. 
The monks were exposed to temptations that 
could not be resisted in the midst of condi- 
tions that cut them off from the best human 

(12) 



The Social Instinct. 13 

helps, and at the same time exposed them to 
the perils that must always attend any de- 
parture from any ordinance of God, whether 
written in his word or in the nature of man. 
The system, though dying, yet lingers; hut 
it is doomed, and the experiment will not be 
made again. The Christianity of the cloister 
will live only in history and poetry. The 
Christianity of the future is that which, fol- 
lowing its Master, goes about doing good, 
carrying its light into all the dark places of 
the earth, and, instead of nursing its own 
reveries in solitude, carries the knowledge of 
the risen Jesus and the love of God into all 
human homes, and to every heating, aching, 
yearning, human heart. 

In the absence of the social relations 
which God has ordained and blessed, the true 
and perfect development of religious charac- 
ter is impossible. The discipline of the fam- 
ily on earth is preparatory to the joys of the 
family above. The culture of Christian 
friendship and the interchange of Christian 
affection here are the basis and preparation 
for the fellowship of the saints in glory. The 
whole family in earth and heaven are one — 



14 The Social Instinct. 

One family we dwell in Him, 

One Church above, beneath, 
Though now divided by the stream, 

The narrow stream, of death. 

The interblending of human and divine 
love is one of the wonders and mysteries of 
the grace of God. Where the one ends and 
the other begins no one can tell. The human 
affections are not only used in the Holy 
Scriptures to type the divine, but are in act- 
ual experience made the channel for its com- 
munication. 

" I like to hear your songs; their melody 
enchants me; and your rejoicings around the 
altar give me pleasure; but it is human 
excitement, sympathetic emotion," said a 
thoughtful and skeptical physician, who 
stood gazing upon the exercises in the altar 
one night during a camp-meeting in Cali- 
fornia. 

"You are right, doctor,'' was the reply. 
"It is human sympathy — and it is more: it 
is both human and divine. It pleases God 
to make the one a channel for the other. In 
this way souls are converted. Thought kin- 
dles thought, heart responds to heart, and 



The Social Instinct. 15 

the blessed Spirit of the Lord enters the 
soul, made receptive and responsive by the 
excitation of those elements of human nat- 
ure which are as much the work of God as 
the creation of the soul, and which are cor- 
related in their nature and action to man's 
whole being and destiny." 

He looked at me keenly for a few mo- 
ments, and, pressing my hand warmly, said: 

" I thank you, sir; I believe I have caught 
a new idea." 

And he had. This view of the matter 
tided him over a difficulty that had perplexed 
him, and has perplexed thousands of others 
who overlook the facts that man's moral 
nature is a unit, and that what we call the 
natural and the supernatural, the human 
and the divine, are not two systems, but one. 
It was a turning-point in the destiny of a 
soul. From that hour this man's grasp upon 
heavenly things grew stronger and stronger, 
until the sublime and blessed verities of the 
Christian faith became the sweetness and 
joy of his life. 

The social instinct, regarded in the light 
of these suggestions, is seen to be not merely 



16 The Social Instinct. 

the regulator of human relationships, and 
the instrument of earthly pleasure, but the 
channel through which the heavenly life 
flows down into the receptive soul. The 
same chords that respond to human sympa- 
thy and affection vibrate also to the thrilling 
touch of the Spirit of God. 



THE BIBLE TEACHING. 

THE Bible teaching on this subject ac- 
cords with the principles glanced at in 
the previous chapters. This is what we might 
expect. The Bible and human nature have 
the same Author. Nothing is plainer than 
that. God deals with men as social beings 
as regards both their duties and devotions. 
Social prayer is as explicitly enjoined as secret 
prayer. It is scarcely less needed. Prayer 
that is always subjective covers only a part 
of the objects that should be embraced in a 
Christian man's petitions to the throne of 
grace. That sort of prayer is necessary to 
the development of one side of the Chris- 
tian life, and cannot be omitted. There is 
another side which is developed by social 
prayer, and this cannot be dispensed with 
except at the expense of loss and one-sided- 
ness in the religious life. The instinct of 
the soul harmonizes with the word of God. 
In all false religions this instinct expresses 
2 (17) 



18 The Bible Teaching. 

itself in some form or other. In the Old 
Testament scriptures both social and public 
worship are enjoined, and regulated by spe- 
cific commands and a prescribed ritual. The 
worship of the Mosaic ritual was not in- 
tended merely to maintain the knowledge of 
the true God, and to save Israel from idol- 
atry, but it was designed also to meet an im- 
perative need and craving of the human -soul. 
By this worship patriotic fervor was kindled 
and maintained, the unity of the national 
life conserved, and the social nature of the 
people kept wholesome and sweet. It was 
a characteristic of the remnant of those who 
retained the true faith in the days of the 
nation's decline, that they met for social 
religious converse and fellowship. "Then 
they that feared the Lord spake often one to 
another." Driven from the temple by the 
corruptions that were prevalent, cut off 
from the usual means of public worship, in 
obedience to the divine command and the 
impulses of their natures they sought the 
fellowship of kindred minds and the com- 
fort of religious communion. The precise 
nature of these religious conversational meet- 



The Bible Teaching. 19 

ings is not stated, but they were clearly social 
and devotional. They spoke to each other, 
and their words were of such a character as 
to he found worthy of record, not only in the 
memories of the participants, but in the 
eternal records in which the Lord himself 
perpetuates the testimonies of the faithful 
ones who confess him when the multitude 
deny him, and who draw closer to him and 
one another when the crowd forsake or 
threaten. These meetings had all the essen- 
tial elements of the Class -meeting, as con- 
ducted by Methodists. They that feared the 
Lord and thought upon his name were those 
who meditated upon God and heavenly 
tilings, and whose lives were conformed to 
his will, and brought into vital contact and 
union with him. To think upon the name 
of the Lord is to have his image before 
the mind, and to dwell adoringly and grate- 
fully upon his attributes, as revealed in his 
word, exhibited in his providence, and dis- 
closed to the believing heart by the Holy 
Spirit. The name of God is in this sense 
God himself. Their view of God and their 
relation to him was the basis and bond of 



20 The Bible Teaching. 

their union with each other. They held to 
the same principles, they recognized the 
same obligations, and they were thus pre- 
pared to sympathize with, comfort, strength- 
en, and encourage one another, in their devo- 
tions and duties, their trials and sorrows. 



NEW TESTAMENT PRACTICE. 

THIS recognition of the social element in 
religion pervades the New Testament. 
The Master taught and trained " the twelve " 
together. In this way, doubtless, while the 
individuality of each one was not destroyed, 
it was happily modified — these chosen men 
reacting on one another. Thus each learned 
from all, and each became a mirror in which 
his fellow-disciples could see an example to 
be followed, or faults to be shunned. So 
with " the seventy," and so with the Church 
as it came from the molding hands of the 
apostles, warm and plastic with the life of 
God, and breathing the breath of heaven. 
The idea of solitary Christian living is not 
hinted at in the New Testament. It never 
could have been entertained for a moment 
until the Church had lost the spirit of its 
Head, who came to make men brothers. 
Paul and Peter, and James and John, looked 
upon the Church as a family, and in their 

(21) 



22 New Testament Practice. 

teachings employed all appropriate figures 
of speech to illustrate this relation. The 
Love -feast and the Class -meeting, in their 
essential characteristics, were means of grace 
employed by the apostles and their fellow- 
Christians. In their assemblies the very 
exercises which constitute a Methodist Class- 
meeting were held. In these meetings prayer 
and song, exhortation and teaching, called 
forth the gifts of the believers for the profit 
of all. (Eead the twelfth chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans. See 1 Corinthians 
i. 6.) Mark the whole spirit and practice of 
the early Church. The false and freezing 
notion that only preachers can testify for 
Christ was the birth of a later and more 
corrupt period. It was the apostolic com- 
mand that Christians should comfort and 
edify one another; and they did it. (See 
1 Thess. v. 11.) This scripture is conclusive 
as to the point in hand. The members of 
the Church were to do this mutual service 
for one another. Their spiritual father and 
minister was absent, carrying the gospel to 
others, planting new Churches, and forming 
new centers of gospel light and power. The 



New Testament Practice. 23 

members of the Church edified one another. 
They did not plead alleged pastoral oversight 
or neglect as an excuse for the neglect of 
every Christian duty. More than once dur- 
ing my ministerial life have I known Church- 
societies, strong in numbers, almost disinte- 
grate from the temporary loss of a pastor. 
These people call themselves soldiers of Jesus 
Christ! They belong to the army of the 
Lord! A million of such would not conquer 
a village for Christ in a million of years. 
Where did they get such a conception of the 
duties of Christian discipleship? What sort 
of a conversion did they undergo? Where 
are their Bibles?. Who are their religious 
instructors ? The writer served temporarily 
a Baptist Church in San Francisco, whose 
members, in the absence of a pastor, kept up 
during several months all the social meetings 
of the Church, without any flagging of zeal 
or loss of interest. They followed the E~ew 
Testament, and from it they had learned 
what were the privileges and duties of the 
living members of Christ's living Church. 

The right view and the right practice were 
recovered by Methodists under the lead of 



24 New Testament Practice. 

John Wesley and his associates and succes- 
sors. The Church recovered its lost freedom 
and regained its lost power. The seal of 
silence was broken in its assemblies. The 
living stream of renewed spiritual life broke 
forth in the desert, and the wilderness blos- 
somed as the rose. It was a resurrection. 
It was a resurrection of a buried gift; and the 
living, glowing, growing, rejoicing, witness- 
ing Church, sprang into life, and ^N"ew Tes- 
tament Christianity again walked the earth 
in its original beauty, and wrought its won- 
ders as at the first. 

The Methodists did not originate the Class- 
meeting. They only revived it. It was born 
with the Christian Church. It was born of 
the instincts, necessities, and aspirations of 
human nature, hungering for heavenly truth 
and holy human fellowship. The Method- 
ists gave it a name, but the thing itself 
was the inevitable revival of an apostolic 
institution when a mighty work of God had 
brought back again the essential doctrine, 
polity, and usages, of the uncorrupted Church 
of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was not an in- 
vention, but the normal outgrowth of a living 



New Testament Practice. 25 

Christianity. Its elements were in the con- 
ditions developed by the great revival, and 
they crystallized into the form it took by the 
operation of the law that New Testament 
Christianity will and must express itself in 
New Testament forms. The recovery of the 
primitive spirit brought with it the recove- 
ry of the primitive usages of the Church of 
Christ. 



PREPARATORY. 

" CT* IR, you wish to serve God and go to 
^J3 heaven; remember you cannot serve 
him alone; yon must therefore find compan- 
ions, or make them; the Bible knows nothing 
of solitary religion." 

These words, spoken to John Wesley just 
before his return to the University of Ox- 
ford, in 1729, helped to give direction to his 
life. Arriving at Oxford, he joined the 
"Holy Club," and at once became its leading 
spirit. It consisted of only four members 
— John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Mr. Mor- 
gan, the son of an Irish gentleman, and 
Mr. Kirkham, of Merton College. Here was 
the germ of the Class-meeting. They spent 
three or four evenings each week in reading 
together the Greek Testament and the an- 
cient classics. Their Sundays were devoted 
specially to the study of divinity. They 
visited the prisons and the sick. The 
Club increased in numbers, and its labors 

(26) 



Preparatory. 27 

and devotions were systematized. In 1735 
Whitefield joined them. The name "Meth- 
odists" had already been applied to them, 
suggested by their methodical habits. They 
lived by rule. " They built me up," says 
Whitefield, " in the knowledge and fear of 
God, and taught me to endure hardness as a 
good soldier of Jesus Christ." The great 
preacher fell into the error of becoming a 
"Quietist" for a time, absented himself from 
the meetings of the Club, taking instead 
solitary walks into the fields, and praying 
silently and alone. But his healthy relig- 
ious nature soon reacted. " God gave me, 
blessed be his holy name ! a teachable temper, 
and I was delivered from those wiles of Sa- 
tan." John Wesley himself had great per- 
plexities and mental trials from reading the 
mystic writers who substituted reveries for 
duties, and self-analysis and introspection for 
the social religious labors and enjoyments. 
They so construed the first and great com- 
mandment as to exclude the second, which 
is like unto it. Mr. Wesley tells its effect 
upon himself. The morbid and unscripturai 
view these writers present of union with 



28 Preparatory. 

God and internal religion made every thing 
else appear to him mean and insipid. " But 
they made good works appear so too; yea, 
and faith itself, and what not? They gave 
me an entire new view of religion, nothing 
like any I had before. But, alas! it was 
nothing like that religion which Christ and 
his apostles taught. I had a plenary dispen- 
sation from all the commands of God. The 
form was thus : Love is all ; all the commands 
besides are only means of love; you must 
choose those which you feel are means to 
you, and use them as long as they are so. 
Thus were all the bonds burst at once; and 
though I never could fully come into this, 
nor contentedly omit what God enjoined, 
yet, I know not how, I fluctuated between 
obedience and disobedience. I had no heart, 
no vigor, no zeal in obeying; continually 
doubting whether I was right or wrong, and 
never out of perplexities or entanglements. 
Nor can I at this hour give a distinct ac- 
count how or when I came a little back to- 
ward the right way; only my present sense 
is this — all the other enemies of Christianity 
are t rifle rs; the Mystics are the most dan- 



Preparatory. 29 

gerous; they stab it in the vitals; and its 
most serious professors are most likely to fall 
by them." 

This is strong language, but it is true. 
Nothing more surely and completely kills 
Christianity than to isolate it. Imprison it 
selfishly in the heart, and it dies for lack of 
air and sunlight. 

Years before Mr. Wesley had felt his want 
of harmony with God, and asked himself, 
Could it be attained ? and, if attained, could 
it fail to be a matter of consciousness? These 
questions found a happy answer in his expe- 
rience on Wednesday, May 24, 1738. About 
five o'clock on that morning he opened his 
Testament on these words: " There are given 
unto us exceeding great and precious promises, 
even that ye should be partakers of the divine 
nature." (2 Peter i. 4.) Just as he went out 
he opened it again on the passage, "Thou art 
not far from the kingdom of God." In the 
evening of the same day he went reluctantly 
to a society in Aldersgate street, where a 
layman was reading Luther's preface to the 
Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter be- 
fore nine, while listening to Luther's descrip- 



30 Preparatory. 

tion of the change which the Holy Spirit 
works in the heart, through faith in Christ, 
the great and blessed change took place. Mr. 
Wesley tells it thus : 

I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I 
did trust in Christ — Christ alone — for salvation, and 
an assurance was given me that he had taken away 
my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of 
sin and death. But it was not long before the enemy 
suggested, "This cannot be faith, for where is thy 
joy?" Then I was taught that peace and victory 
over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of 
our salvation ; but that, as to the transports of joy 
which usually attend the beginning of it, especially 
in those who have mourned deeply, God sometimes 
giveth, sometimes withholdeth them, according to 
the counsels of his own will. After my return home 
I was much buffeted with temptations, but cried out, 
and they fled away. They returned again and 
again; I as often lifted up my eyes, and He sent me 
help from my holy place. And herein I found the 
difference between this and my former state chiefly 
consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting, with all my 
might, under the law as well as under grace. But 
then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered; now I 
was always conqueror. 

This experience, realized when he was 
thirty-five years old, after long and painful 
struggle, prepared the founder of Method- 



Preparatory. 31 

ism to lead in the development of means 
of grace in which converted men and wom- 
en bore testimony to the new birth and to 
the witness of the Spirit, and edified one 
another in love. 



BIRTH OF THE METHODIST 
CLASS-MEETING. 

THE Class-meeting was not planned or 
devised. It was a providential birth. 
It was not the work of man, but of God. It 
originated in a pecuniary scheme. 

Mr. Wesley was talking with the mem- 
bers of the Society in Bristol concerning the 
payment of some chapel - debts, when one 
rose and said: 

" Let every member of the Society give a 
penny a week until all are paid." 

"But," it was answered, "many of them 
are poor, and cannot afford it." 

" Then," said the first speaker, " put eleven 
of the poorest with me, and if they can give 
any thing, well; I will call on them weekly, 
and if they can give nothing, I will give for 
them as well as for myself. And each of you 
call on eleven of your neighbors weekly, re- 
ceive what they give, and make up what is 
wanting." 

(32) 



Birth of the Methodist Class-meeting. 33 

The suggestion was adopted. In a little 
while some of the leaders informed Mr. 
Wesley that they found members who did 
not live as they should. 

" It struck me immediately," said Mr. Wes- 
ley, " this is the thing, the very thing, we 
have wanted so long." 

He called together all the leaders, and re- 
quested each one to make particular inquiry 
into the conduct of those he saw weekly. 
This was done, and many members were 
found to be walking disorderly. Some of 
these were reclaimed, and others were ex- 
pelled. 

In London and other places the same 
method was used, and with like results. 
Unworthy persons were detected and re- 
proved. "If they forsook their evil ways, 
they were retained gladly; if they obsti- 
nately persisted, it was openly declared that 
they were not of us. The rest mourned and 
prayed for them, and yet rejoiced that, as far 
as in us lay, the scandal was rolled away 
from the Society." 

It was made the duty of a leader (1) to 
see each person in his Class once a week, at 
3 



34 Birth of the Methodist Class-meeting. 

the least, in order to inquire respecting his 
spiritual condition ; to advise, reprove, com- 
fort, or exhort, as occasion may require; and 
to receive what he is willing to give toward 
the relief of the poor and the support of the 
gospel. (2) To meet the minister and the 
stewards of the Society, in order to report to 
the former any that are sick, or any that are 
disorderly and will not be reproved, and to 
pay the stewards what they have received 
from their several classes in the week pre- 
ceding. 

Each person was visited at his own house 
at first, but for many reasons this was soon 
found to be impracticable, and was discon- 
tinued. Therefore it was agreed that the 
members of each class should meet together, 
and thus more satisfactory inquiry was made 
concerning the experience of each one. Mr. 
Wesley thus speaks of the results: 

It can scarce be conceived what advantages have 
been reaped from this little prudential regulation. 
Many now happily experienced that Christian fel- 
lowship of which they had not so much as an idea 
before. They began to "bear one another's bur- 
dens/' and naturally to " care for each other." As 
they had daily a more intimate acquaintance with, 



Birth of the Methodist Class-meeting. 35 

so they had a more endeared affection for, each other. 
And, speaking the truth in love, they grew up into him in 
all things, who is the Head, even Christ ; from whom the 
whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that 
which every joint supplied, according to the effectual work- 
ing in the measure of every part, increased unto the edifying 
itself in love. 

Borrowing a usa^e from the ancient 
Church, Mr. Wesley issued tickets to the 
members in the shape of small cards hear- 
ing pointed texts of Scripture. These tick- 
ets were dated, inscribed with the name of 
the bearer, and renewed quarterly. They 
often bore a symbolical engraving of some 
sort — a Bible encircled by a halo; a guard- 
ian angel ; an anchor, etc. The ticket was 
practically his certificate of membership in 
the Society, and answered all the purposes, 
in cases of removal, of the commendatory 
letters mentioned by the Apostle Paul. 

This was the origin of the Methodist 
Class-meeting, and it was evidently the work 
of God — one of those instances in which 
he brings forth the greatest results from 
the most unexpected and apparently insig- 
nificant causes. The spark kindled by the 
unknown man at Bristol, who suggested a 



36 Birth of the Methodist Class-meeting. 

penny a week for the payment of chapel- 
debts, has made a blaze that has illumi- 
nated whole continents and the isles of the 
sea. This light is now being rekindled, and 
its beams will shine more brightly, and ex- 
tend farther, than at the first. God of our 
fathers, grant that it may be so ! 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CLASS- 
MEETING. 

A NURSE was at hand to cherish the in- 
stitution whose hirth was recorded in 
the last chapter. That nurse was John 
Wesley. We have already seen how God 
had schooled him for such a work. 

The weekly contribution was continued 
after the chapel -debts were paid. At first 
they were paid by the Class-leaders to the 
stewards for the poor. Soon the lay minis- 
try arose under the Methodist movement, 
and the Class-meeting became the source of 
their support. The "penny a w T eek and 
shilling a quarter" worked wonders, making 
a system of Church-finance never surpassed 
in simplicity and effectiveness. 

As a means of moral discipline for the 
Church, the Class-meeting wrought incalcu- 
lable benefits. The Class-leaders, as sub-pas- 
tors (for this was their function), were ap- 
pointed by the pastors, made weekly exami- 

(37) 



38 Development of the Class-meeting. 

nation of the members of the Societies, and 
at first reported the result once a week, 
afterward only monthly. Such discipline 
had not been since the apostolic age. The 
Class-meeting was a providential necessity. 
The simple terms of admission into the 
Methodist Societies drew into them during 
the great religious awakening a vast multi- 
tude of men and women who needed its in- 
spection, nurture, and instruction. 

The pastors of the Methodist Societies (with 
Mr. Wesley "Society" and "Church" were 
interchangeable terms) were, from the very 
necessity of the great religious movement, 
constantly going from place to place. Many 
of them hardly stopped as much as a whole 
day in any one place. Direct pastoral over- 
sight and care of the Societies was not pos- 
sible. The Class-leaders took this work, and 
by their service the fruits of the pastors' 
labors were happily conserved, and the world 
saw in operation a system combining at once 
the most efficient evangelization and the 
most thorough moral discipline. 

The Band-meeting was introduced as a 
supplement to the Class-meeting. Its start- 



Development of the Class-meeting. 39 

ing-point was also Bristol. It grew out of a 
desire on the part of many persons of a 
means of closer communion. They wished 
to enjoy the benefits of Christian fellowship 
without reserve. "They were," says Mr. 
Wesley, "the more desirous of this when 
they observed that it was the express advice 
of an inspired writer: 'Confess your faults 
one to another, and fray one for another, that 
ye may be healed.' " He divided them into 
smaller companies, putting the married or 
single men, and the married or single wom- 
en, together. 

The Band-meeting pledge was: " To con- 
fess our faults one to another, and pray one 
for another, that we may be healed, we in- 
tend — 1. To meet once a week, at the least. 
2. To come punctually at the hour appoint- 
ed. 3. To begin with singing or prayer. 4. 
To speak each of us in order, freely and 
plainly, the true state of our souls, with the 
faults we have committed in thought, word, 
or deed, the temptations we have felt since 
our last meeting. 5. To desire some person 
among us (thence called a leader) to speak 
his own state first, and then to ask the rest, 



40 Development of the Class-meeting. 

in order, as many and as searching questions 
as may be, concerning their state, sins, and 
temptations." 

Mr. Wesley desired all the male bands to 
meet him or his preacher every Wednesday 
evening, and the women on Sunday, that 
they might receive snch special instructions 
and exhortations as might be needful for 
them ; that special prayers might be offered 
as their cases demanded, and thanksgiving 
given for mercies received. 

The Band -meeting was never enjoined 
in the General Rules. The Class-meeting 
adopted some of its features, and finally 
superseded it. 

These rules of the Band-meeting throw a 
blaze of light upon the Methodism of that 
day. How intense was the feeling that thus 
found expression! How strong and absorb- 
ing the religious purpose! The great re- 
vival was at its white heat when these rules 
were adopted, and we need not wonder that 
in contact with such a spirit formalism and 
worldliness were swept aside as by the breath 
of the Lord. 

It is not claiming too much to say that to 



Development of the Class-meeting. 41 

the Class-meeting Methodism was indebted 
more than to any other agency for the vigor 
of its discipline, the purity of its member- 
ship, and the permanence of its acquisitions. 
It was at once a means of grace and a test 
of sincerity. It made every Class-leader a 
drill-sergeant in the army of the Lord. By 
it the Church recovered its lost gift of utter- 
ance, and where surpliced State stipendiaries 
had mumbled printed prayers to sleeping au- 
ditors, or empty benches, the voices of tens 
of thousands of men and women, rejoicing in 
the liberty wherewith they had been made 
free, were heard telling the wonderful things 
of God. As in apostolic days, believers ex- 
horted, comforted, and edified, one another. 
It was a resurrection of apostolic power and 
the restoration of apostolic usages. 



RIGHT ARM OF METHODISM. 

F*OR more than a hundred years the 
Class -meeting was the right arm of 
Methodism. It conserved the fruits of its 
continuous revivals, leaving the mighty men 
of God who traveled and preached untram- 
meled in their ministry, and allowing them 
to go to the regions beyond at the shortest 
call from the captains of the itinerant host. 
In the Class-room was first exercised and 
recognized the gifts of young men who be- 
came exhorters, Class-leaders in their turn, 
and preachers of the word. Every Method- 
ist Society was an army in the field and in 
training for the conquest of the world. It 
was, to all practical intents and purposes, a 
theological seminary. In it the young con- 
vert learned the doctrines of Methodism in 
concrete form. They were inwrought into 
the very warp and woof of his spiritual life. 
In the Class-meeting, the young man who 
was looking- to the ministry was led to think 

(42) 



Bight Arm of Methodism. 43 

more of the practical questions that bear di- 
rectly upon the spiritual life than of specu- 
lative points in theology, or difficulties in exe- 
gesis, and when he entered the pulpit he was 
able to point his hearers in a straight line to 
the cross, and to tell with confidence and with 
convincing power what he had seen and felt. 
Should not every Methodist school in the 
land have its Class-meeting, and especially 
those with theological departments proper? 
It would be a strong defense against ration- 
alistic error and nebulous theology in gen- 
eral. Agnostic nonsense could have no show 
of respect or tolerance in a warm Methodist 
Class- meeting. It withers and dies in the 
blaze of a genuine experience of the presence 
and power of the Holy Ghost. 

The Class-meeting furnished a test of sin- 
cerity of special value to the Church during 
this period of rapid growth. The methods 
of our fathers were those of the apostles. 
They cast their nets into the sea, and drew 
to land good and bad. The condition of 
admission into their Societies was a desire 
to flee the wrath to come and lead a new 
life. The Class-meeting very soon tested the 



44 Right Arm of Methodism. 

quality of these recruits, and the sincerity 
of their expressed desire and avowed motive 
in seeking such relationship. The earnest 
ones found in it just what they wanted. The 
half-hearted and carnally-minded found in 
it just what they did not want and could 
not endure. Before the six-months' proba- 
tion was out the faithful were confirmed and 
the unworthy were gotten rid of. This was 
Methodist " confirmation ; " and most satis- 
factory it was. It was of the nature of that 
referred to by a good old black Methodist 
woman whom a Protestant Episcopal Bishop 
proposed to take into his Church with the 
rite of confirmation : 

" Why, bless your soul, honey, Tse already 
been confirmed a hundred times!" 

She was doubtless a Class-meeting Meth- 
odist. 

The weekly inspection and stimulus of the 
Class-meeting more than any other one agen- 
cy gave Methodism its purity and its power. 
It made a distinct line of separation between 
the Church and the world. It filled the 
ranks with true soldiers of Jesus Christ, and 
trained them for service by the most efficient 



Bight Arm of Methodism. 45 

methods. At the same time it stripped the 
uniform of Christianity from those who 
would dishonor or betray it. Never sinee 
the days of the apostles was there such ef- 
fective moral discipline, and never did the 
Church exhibit such power or make such 
progress. The Class -meeting, under God, 
was thus at once a source of aggressive en- 
ergy in the Church and the conservator of 
its enormous gains. 



WEAKENED. 

AS the period of the Church's greatest 
spirituality was that of the Class- 
meeting's greatest power, so a period of spir- 
itual declension in the Church was also 
marked by the decline of the Class-meeting. 
A cold and lifeless Church-member has no 
relish for such a means of grace. The man 
who has no experience to tell will avoid the 
place where religious experience is the only 
theme. "Experience -meetings," says Dr. 
Summers, " have been held in every age of 
the Church. There is a yearning for fellow- 
ship in the pious bosom; and where there 
are the instincts of the spiritual life, they 
will seek and find development." But when 
the instincts of the spiritual life are lost, this 
yearning is no longer felt. The carnal mind 
seeks carnal association, and finds enjoyment 
in no other. "Let us consider one another to 
provoke unto love and to good, ivories; not for- 
saking the assembling of ourselves tor/ether, as 

(46) 



Weakened. 47 

the manner of some is; but exhorting one an- 
other, and so much the more as ye see the day 
approaching." The apostle in this language 
describes the features of a Methodist Class- 
meeting — " meeting together, watchful over- 
sight of each other, and mutual exhorta- 
tions" — and urges this means of grace as a 
safeguard against being hardened through 
the deceitful ness of sin, and as an encourage- 
ment in the discharge of duty. Neglect of 
Christian fellowship is an unfailing symptom 
of the loss of Christian zeal. The empty 
seats at the weekly prayer-meeting are a 
valid indictment against the absentees. The 
Class-meeting, as it is more directly a searcher 
of the heart and a revealer of its tendency, 
while it will be sought by the spiritually- 
minded, will more surely be shunned by the 
backslidden and the backsliding. Coetaneous 
with the decline of the Class-meeting there 
was visible increase of worlclliness in the 
Church and laxity in its discipline. The 
doctrinal standard was lowered, and the 
practice of the Church sunk with it. A 
cloud of witnesses, living and dead, testify 
to this fact. When the theater, the ball, 



48 Weakened. 

and the card-table came in, the Class-meeting 
went out. When the world filled the thoughts 
of the people, they could not be expected 
to meet to talk about religion. As the Class- 
meeting was the normal outgrowth of re- 
vived New Testament Christianity, so when 
that revival ebbed it was left stranded on the 
sands of worldliness. The day of elegant 
written pulpit essays, quartette choirs, and 
frigid gentility had come, and that of the 
Class-meeting was past. A heaven-kindled 
light was smothered. The voice of a witness- 
ing Church was hushed. But not wholly 
was the light quenched, or the voice silenced. 
The holy fire still continued to burn here 
and there, and living voices, refusing to be 
gagged, testified of the grace of God, and 
exhorted, comforted, and edified his people. 
The Class -meeting did not die. It never 
will die. But it has had a long sickness, and 
has suffered at the hands of its friends as well 
as its enemies. 



STEREOTYPED. 

IF you inclose a living man in a plaster-of- 
Paris mold, lie will die unless speedily 
released. The Class -meeting was treated 
somewhat in this way. While the polity of 
Methodism was subjected to many modifica- 
tions, and its pulpit likewise showed adapta- 
bility to the changed conditions of society, 
th-e Class-meeting remained stationary. It 
ceased to develop, and it began to decline. 
But its roots were fixed too deep in Bible- 
teaching and in the instincts of human nat- 
ure for it to perish easily. Had this not been 
so, nothing could have saved it amid the 
perils and shocks it has encountered. Its 
branches have been torn by the storms, its 
trunk scathed, but the tree still stands, and 
is putting forth the tender twigs of a new 
growth, and we shall again have bud, and 
bloom, and fruit. God give the Church 
faithful husbandmen, and send the sunshine 
and the shower! 

4 (49) 



50 Stereotyped. 

As something more than a mere hortatory 
gift was demanded of the pulpit, so some- 
thing more was needed in the Class-meeting. 
The time had come when the leader must 
lead, and feed the thought of his Class. Not 
a word have I to say against enthusiasm. 
Without it the Church is repellent in its 
coldness and contemptible in its weakness. 
Not a word have I to say against the emo- 
tional element in religion. The now preva- 
lent tendency to underrate it, to sneer at it, 
and to banish it from the religious life alto- 
gether, is a symptom of evil and a sign of 
danger threatening all that is most precious 
in Christianity. Take this away, and what 
would be left would be a body without a soul, 
light without heat. Religion without feel- 
ing is barren and fruitless; but a religion all 
feeling is fanaticism. Mere intellectualism 
freezes and starves, and the human soul 
never fails to turn from it to seek food and 
warmth wherever they are to be found. But 
of all tiresome things to human nature a 
tautologous emotionality, unrelieved and un- 
redeemed by fresh and living thought, is the 
most intolerable. The preacher whose shal- 



Stereotyped. 51 

low but honest tears and melting voice could 
move a new audience for a sermon or so, is 
met by empty pews after the people have 
found out that there is nothing back of his 
lungs and lachrymal glands. The Class- 
leader whose zeal is not according to knowl- 
edge, whose sole gift is that of vague and 
loud exhortation, is just as sure to lose his 
hold upon his Class. The fervor born of a 
blazing revival is a good thing, but if it 
do not associate itself with study of the word 
of God, and the book of human nature, it 
is a meager endowment for one to whom 
is intrusted the nurture of souls in this 
age of the world. In many places it was 
not the Class-meeting, but the Class-leader, 
who broke down. He broke down because 
he became a fossil when a living, growing 
man was needed. A chilling frost of car- 
nal -mindedness stunted the growth of this 
tree of God's own planting, and the short- 
comings of the keepers of the vineyard en- 
hanced the damage. 



NON-ADAPTATIONS. 

DISREGARD of the law of tempera- 
mental and spiritual affinities helped 
to cripple the Class-meeting. The division 
of the people into classes was too often an 
arbitrary matter. Their preferences were 
not consulted. Souls that would have pros- 
pered under the guidance of one leader were 
repelled and discouraged by another. 

" I will not attend Class-meeting any longer 
unless I can join another Class," said a lady 
in Savannah. "They have put me in my 
husband's Class, and he whips all the Class 
over my shoulders. I won't stand it." 

She was right. That husband and wife 
were both good people, but there were spe- 
cial peculiarities of disposition in each that 
made it wiser for them to be in different 
classes. He was a good Class -leader for 
other ladies, but not for his wife. 

A man of stern and unsympathetic nature 
is not suited to the office of Class-leader at 

(52) 



Non-adaptations. 53 

all. But to put a man of this sort in charge 
of a Class of young persons is a special folly. 
This was often done, and the result was to 
repel the young disciple from a needed 
means of grace. 

A timid, sensitive lady, who had recently 
joined the Church, was induced to attend 

Brother J 's Class after preaching on 

Sunday morning. Not having been reared 
a Methodist, it was her first attendance upon 

a Class-meeting. Brother J was a good 

man, but stern-looking, with heavy, frown- 
ing eyebrows, and a strong, harsh voice. 
Fixing his gaze upon her, as she sat half- 
wondering, half- scared, he thundered the 
question — 

" Sister, do you ever pray 9 ?" 

"Yes, sir! yes, sir!" she exclaimed in a 
panic, half springing from her seat. 

"I will never go to another Class-meet- 
ing," she said to her pastor the next day; " I 
was never more frightened in my life." 

The pastor explained, wisely put her into 
another Class with a different sort of a 
leader, where she throve, was happy, and be- 
came an ardent lover of the Class-meeting. 



54 Non-adaptations. 

At the seat of one of our best colleges, 
after a revival in which a large number of 
the more advanced students were taken into 
the Church, the young converts were put 
into a Class, and a leader appointed to take 
charge of them. He was a well-meaning 
man, but he was very weak in his syntax — 
the very point at which a lot of young Fresh- 
men and Sophomores are naturally inclined 
to be most critical. That arrangement broke 
down, of course, and another — not a better 
Christian, but a better grammarian — took 
the leadership, and all went well. 

In the same town, for the accommodation 
of the country members, a Class-meeting 
was held after the morning service. A col- 
lege professor — a bookish, pedantic, abstract- 
ed young man — was appointed to lead it. 
He made those plain old Methodists stare 
with wonder while he talked of spiritual 
things " objective " and "subjective," and 
the development of this and that faculty of 
the soul according to psychological laws. 
There were neither "Aniens" nor shouts in 
that Class-meeting. But when a brother, 
who had good common sense, a fervent spirit. 



Non-adaptations. 55 

a ready utterance, and the gift of song, was 
put in charge of the Class, their harps were 
taken from the willows, and great was the 
joy. That Class prospered thenceforward. 

A Class composed mainly of the most 
stirring and successful business men of the 
town was put in charge of an amiable, shift- 
less, voluble brother, who was always in debt, 
and who owed most of the brethren commit- 
ted to his spiritual oversight. The good 
brother did not seem to be at all abashed in 
the presence of his creditors — he had by long 
practice become used to it, and almost 
thought that to be in debt w^as the normal 
state of a godly man — but it was evident 
that they discounted him. They found it diffi- 
cult to believe that a brother who was so 
slipshod in temporal matters could be a safe 
guide in spiritual ones. The pastor found 
it necessary to make a change in the leader- 
ship of that Class. 

These cases illustrate my point. As in the 
pastorate, so in the Class-leadership, or sub- 
pastorate — regard must be had to mutual 
adaptation. 



OJS T E OF THEM. 

HE was a good man; but his goodness 
was mostly of a negative sort. He 
did not swear, steal, lie, or break the Sabbath. 
He did not quarrel, light, nor slander his 
neighbors. He did not drink whisky, dance, 
play cards, or go to the theater. The circus 
even was eschewed by him. So he was such 
an inoffensive sort of man that he was ap- 
pointed Class-leader. There was nothing 
positive about him. He had imitation enough 
to sink into a rut, but not energy enough ever 
to get out again. He prayed the same prayer 
every week at the opening of the meeting. 
The same "experience" was told by him 
until every member of the Class knew it by 
heart. Beginning with the day when God 
for Christ's sake spoke peace to his soul 
twenty years before, and ending with the 
stereotyped expression of a hope that he 
would outride the storm and enter the haven 
of everlasting rest, he went over and over 

(56) 



One of Them. 57 

the same ground until it ceased to make any 
impression except one of weariness. With 
his eyes closed, and his face elongated, he 
went from one to another, asking the same 
questions : " Brother, tell us the state of yon r 
never-dying soul." "Sister, tell how the 
Lord has dealt with you, and what are your 
prospects for heaven and eternal glory." 

The answers were, of course, as vague as 
the questions. There was nothing to hang 
any thing on. So they, one after another, 
would say they had many troubles, and tri- 
als, and tribulations, and temptations, but 
they hoped to hold on and get to the king- 
dom at last. 

The exhortation by the leader that fol- 
lowed each talk was the crowning stupidity 
of his Class-meetins: service. It had two 
faults: it was rambling and nearly meaning- 
less, and it never changed. There was no 
instruction in it, nothing that showed the 
least spiritual insight or vigor of thought, 
but the unvarying expression of a few good 
wishes or mechanical prayers that the brother 
or sister might prove faithful until death, 
and then be crowned, amid sonsrs and shout- 



58 One of Them, 

ings, ou the other side of Jordan. Then a 
long prayer, and then dismissal. 

The younger members of the Class began 
to drop off one by one. Then the others 
began to be missed. At last only three or 
four old people remained, and they showed 
by their countenances that they endured 
rather than enjoyed the Class-meeting. " It 
is not like old times," they sighed. "The 
Church is cold and dead. Holy Ghost relig- 
ion has gone out of date, and the days are 
evil." They suffered and endured, and in the 
simplicity of their kind hearts did not seem 
to know what was the matter. The Class 
had been starved to death. The old soup- 
bones had been boiled over again and again, 
until there was no more nutriment in them. 



ANOTHER. 

HE, too, was a good man. Some thought 
him painfully good. He was not good 
company out of the Class-meeting. In it he 
was an affliction. His face wore a distressed 
look. His voice was distressful in its tone. 
His words were the words of a man who 
was distressed at every thing and everybody. 
It was this peculiarity that caused him to be 
made Class-leader. He expressed so much 
dissatisfaction with the way in which others 
spoke and acted, that the young pastor took 
it for granted that he was the man to get 
matters right, and keep them so. It was 
thought that so severe a critic would be 
nearly faultless, and was the proper censor 
and exemplar for his brethren. And it could 
not be denied that he magnified his office as 
a censor. His groans were unceasing, his 
complaints indiscriminate. In opening the 
Class-meeting, he would read a psalm or a 
prophecy describing the desolations of Zion; 

(59) 



60 Another. 

the hymn would he on the same line; the 
prayer a confession that all was wrong, and 
that there was no hope. His own experience 
was one of warfare without victory, of many 
trials, hut no triumphs. To him the Christian 
life was all a vale of tears with no Pisgali 
summits, a weary desert with no shading 
palms or cooling springs. He saw the dark 
side of all things. He emitted gloom. To 
him life was a dark and thorny path, religion 
all hurclen-bearing, endurance, and persecu- 
tion, and Christian fellowship the opportu- 
nity to exchange complaints and censures. 
He was a good man of his type, but his type 
was not that suited to the Class-leadership. 

A young convert, coming into his Class in 
the glow of his first love, caught a chill that 
was almost deadly. Happy in the new life 
into which he had been born, he was full of 
grateful joy and exultant hope. When he 
had told the story with swelling bosom and 
streaming eyes, the Class -leader sighed a 
long-drawn sigh, groaned, and said: "Ah, 
my young brother, all seems fair and bright 
to you now, but let me warn you of your 
deceitful heart, and of a tempting devil, and 



Another. 61 

a sinful world. The Church is cold and 
backslidden, and there are few that will he 
saved." This was meant well, for he was a 
good man, and candor and faithfulness are 
commendable. But sjmipathy and encour- 
agement were specially called for in such a 
case. These were not in his nature, and 
perhaps he was not to blame. Organic aus- 
terity and gloom are rarely cured this side 
the grave. But a man who can do noth- 
ing but sigh, and groan, and forebode disas- 
ter, is not lit for a leader in the army of the 
Lord. 

The Class scattered under this regime. The 
young people especially — the very class of 
persons most needing the benefits of the 
Class-meeting — were driven away. Who 
could blame them for shunning a place so 
uninviting ? Youth, and health, and hap- 
piness, are proper companions of religion, 
but not the religion of moroseness and gloom. 
The blessed companionship of Jesus never 
checked the beating pulse of lawful pleasure, 
or threw a shadow upon the path of inno- 
cence! 

That this unhappy Class-leader killed his 



62 Another. 

Class was not the worst of it. He helped to 
kill the budding spiritual life in young hearts. 
He made them think that the Church, instead 
of being the house of God in which his fam- 
ily find shelter, companionship, comfort, and 
all holy delights, was a funeral vault in which 
were to be buried all that was bright and 
joyous in life. As a private member of the 
Church he would have been simply disagree- 
able to a small circle, but as a Class-leader 
he was a blight and a burden, a lachrymose 
libel upon the religion which is righteous- 
ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 

This man had a genius for suggesting 
doubt and insinuating distrust. His pastor 
was not sufficiently pugnacious and aggress- 
ive to suit him; and he did not fail to bewail 
a man-fearing ministry, and to wish for one 
who would cry aloud and spare not. He 
would tell of the rougher incidents in the 
ministry of Lorenzo Dow, Peter Cartwright, 
and other preachers of that type, and would 
end by saying, dolefully, " We have no such 
preachers now. Our ministers all prophesy 
smooth things, and allow the Church to go 



Another. 63 

It has already been repeated that he was 
a good man; and so he was, though not 
of the highest or most attractive type of 
goodness. His native bias led him to form 
a false ideal of Christian character and serv- 
ice, and it is the fatal necessity of such nat- 
ures that they see every thing through the 
darkening medium of their own morbidness. 
There is no honey for them in the sweetest 
flowers that bloom in the garden of God. To 
put such a man into the Class-leadership is to 
chill and blight the souls they should warm 
and nurture. 



AND YET ANOTHER. 

HE was also a good man, but he was 
not wise in all things. As a Class- 
leader, his fault was a fatal fluency. He did 
not lead the Class so much as make orations 
to it. His voice was loud, and his words 
were many, but his ideas moved within a very 
small circle. In that circle they went round 
and round with amazing continuance. He 
had studied divinity after a sort, and could 
string a long homily on the faintest thread. 
He was prolixity itself. He was a master of 
the drearily -didactic style of speech. The 
sound of his own voice had a wonderful 
charm for him. By the time he had finished 
his " opening remarks" it was time to close 
the meeting. But it did not so appear to 
him. He was wound up, and had to run 
down in the usual way. His bottled elo- 
quence must be discharged, and the unhappy 
members of the Class must stand it. A sim- 
ple - hearted old sister, in response to an 

(64) 



And Yet Another. 65 

inquiry, says she meets with many trials and 
troubles, but is still trying to put her trust 
in the Saviour. With this text he pitches 
his big voice in a high key, and pours forth 
an avalanche of magniloquent platitudes on 
the general subject of affliction and trial. 
As he proceeds, he gains momentum — his 
voice, we mean, not his thoughts, for there 
is no distinct or connected thought in all the 
long and rumbling volley of sounds. 

A thoughtful and quiet brother speaks of 
mental perplexities that have troubled him, 
and says he has come to the Class-meeting 
hoping to find light. The leader, having 
gotten breath, again pitches that huge voice, 
and takes half an hour in saying nothing 
particular — the hazier the language the louder 
the tone — until the air is dense with mental 
darkness, and rent with meaningless vocif- 
eration. He turns red in the face, perspires, 
claps his hands, and ends with a doxology 
that it would be irreverent to quote in such 
a connection. 

And so he proceeds from week to week. 
The Class-meetings are protracted beyond 
all reasonable limits, and even then nothing 
5 



6Q And Yet Another. 

is done in the way of instructing, comfort- 
ing, or edifying the members, who, feeling 
bored, and realizing that they are not fed, 
drop off, one by one, until the leader is left 
almost alone — almost alone, but not quite. 
It is hard to kill a Class-meeting. The hun- 
ger of the soul prompts some to come, 
though disappointed again and again. Hon- 
est and simple-minded Christians try to 
think that the fault is in themselves instead 
of the leader, and, like thirsty cattle in a 
drought, they keep going to the stream after 
the water is all dried up. Yes, it is hard to 
kill a Class-meeting that has once had life. 
Its dying struggles are protracted and pain- 
ful to behold. Rooted in the instincts and 
necessities of struggling human souls, its 
tenacity of life under adverse conditions is a 
proof of its legitimacy as a means of grace, 
and of its claim to better treatment at the 
hands of its friends. 



TYPES. 

THE leader of the " Young Men's Class " 
in a city Church was a lawyer about 
thirty-five years old, a graduate of one of the 
oldest and best colleges, and the possessor of 
a large fortune by inheritance. Tall, grace- 
ful in movement, with intensely bright dark 
eyes, features in which strength and delicacy 
were blended, heavy black hair above a 
pale brow, he looked like a man of distinc- 
tion in any company. His voice was deep 
and mellow, and had the magnetic quality 
that belonged to the whole man. Young as 
he was, he had suffered. He had naturally 
strong passions, and the traces of internal 
conflicts as well as sorrow were in his face. 
He was an earnest student of the Bible, and 
read it daily in the original Greek, and often 
on his knees. There were about thirty young 
men in his Class, and their regard for him 
was at once respectful and tender. They 
were all drawn very close to him in intimate 

(67) 



68 Types. 

personal fellowship, though the shadow of 
sorrow that rested on him repressed the ex- 
hibition of the jollity that usually marks the 
intercourse of young men who are intimate- 
ly friendly. In leading the Class, his fervor 
kindled a glow in every heart. His opening 
prayer seemed to bring God so near that 
conventionalities were forgotten by the most 
timid in an overpowering sense of divine 
realities. Two opposite peculiarities showed 
themselves in his Class -leadership. The 
martial element in his nature and the sym- 
pathetic were equally quick to flash forth on 
occasion. In exhorting a young soldier of 
the cross, his eye would kindle and his voice 
ring out like the shout of a captain in bat- 
tle. On Zion's walls are now standing more 
than one faithful watchman who caught the 
inspiration of a high Christian enthusiasm 
from this consecrated Class-leader. His in- 
stinct for the recognition of sorrow, and his 
sympathy with it, were also notable. His 
intuition in this line was marvelous. His 
heart-strings had been tuned to grief, and 
they vibrated responsively to its presence in 
others. His ear was quick to detect "the 



Types. 69 

sighing of broken reeds,'' and lie was ten- 
derly skillful in applying the strong conso- 
lation. One night a strange young man 
appeared for the first time in his Class. He 
was in the midst of a severe struggle, and in 
the shadow of a bitter sorrow, and, when 
called on, spoke briefly as he felt. The 
leader's few words in response thrilled him 
with an intense conviction that God was in 
it all, and that he had reached a solemn 
crisis, a pivotal point, in his life. The Class- 
leader had read his heart, and he felt it. At 
the close of the Class -meeting the young 
man, having left the church and started to 
his hotel, had gone but a few steps when an 
arm was thrust into his, and a voice said — 

" If you will allow me, I will go home 
with you." 

It was the Class-leader. He stayed with 
the young stranger until beyond midnight, 
and when they parted they were Christian 
friends — friends for eternity. 

In the same city was another Class-leader, 
a merchant of middle age, a sunny-faced, 
auburn - haired man, with large blue eyes, 
and a smile that made his countenance fairly 



70 Types. 

lighten all over. His gift was a sweet voice in 
song. He knew all the hest hymns by heart, 
and all the good tunes. He sang encourage- 
ment, comfort, advice, reproof, and instruc- 
tion, into his Class. He had a stanza ready 
for every case. It is wonderful how full our 
Weslej^an hymnology is of matter suited to 
such use. It is almost a perfect armory for 
the equipment of a Class-leader of this type. 
If a brother expressed despondency or fear- 
fulness, this tuneful leader would strike up, 
"Am I a soldier of the cross," to an air with 
a martial ring. Did another confess to wea- 
riness under life's heavy burdens, he would 
sing, " There is rest for the weary," so sweet- 
ly that the burdened soul was soothed into 
a blessed tranquillity. When a member of 
the Class met with it for the last time before 
removing to some other place, and took 
leave of his classmates with a melting heart 
and broken voice, the leader would strike up, 
" When shall we all meet again ? " and by the 
time he had reached the last verse — 

When our task of life is said, 
When its wasted lamps are dead, 
Where immortal spirits reign, 
There we all shall meet again — 



Types. 71 

there was an impression and a memory sa- 
cred for all coming life. The echo of that 
voice has brought a melody from the old 
days into the sadness and discord of the 
scattered members of this Class in the long 
years that have followed with their conflicts 
and griefs. This singer was a successful 
Class-leader. 

In another city, many hundreds of miles 
away, was a Class-leader who could not for 
the life of him sing a single tune, but whose 
gift was an unlimited command of Bible lan- 
guage, and singular felicity in its application. 
-His quiver was full of these arrows, and he 
had one always ready. He was a man of 
large frame, with a face expressive of un- 
usual solemnity, and a voice to correspond. 
He had also another gift, and that was tears. 
His own life of sorrow kept that fount 
stirred. He had buried all his children, one 
by one, and other griefs had left their im- 
press upon his soul. A leading merchant in 
his Class spoke of the absorbing nature of 
his business, complaining that it left him 
but little time or strength for religion. Look- 
ing earnestly upon him, the old Class-leader, 



72 Types. 

the tears dropping from his eyes as he spoke, 
said to the busy man — 

"How hardly shall they that have riches 
enter into the kingdom of heaven!" 

And then, after a short pause, he added, 
with redoubled solemnity — 

"What shall it profit a man if he shall 
gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" 

He said no more to him, passing on to 
another member of the Class; but this was 
enough. That hurried merchant got the 
word he needed, and he felt that God had 
spoken to him through his faithful Class- 
leader. This tearful, Bible-quoting old man 
was a successful Class-leader. 

Among the male members of a country 
Church, in one of the older Conferences, there 
was no one who could take charge of a class 
of women. The circuit-preacher asked a sister 
to assume the duties of Class-leader. After 
some hesitation she consented to do so. They 
met weekly, on Thursdays, at the old meet- 
ing-house among the oaks. They came — 
some in their carriages, some on horseback, 
and two or three, who lived in sight, on foot. 
They read the Scriptures, sung, prayed, told 






Types. 73 

one by one what God was doing for them 
and in them by the power of an indwelling 
Christ, and rejoiced and wept together. The 
leader was womanly, tender, and with no 
element of masculinity in her nature; but 
she was fervent, magnetic, full of energy, 
and a sweet singer. The Class prospered, 
and the neighborhood was filled with the fra- 
grance of its blessed influence. All but one 
of these devout women have passed to the 
skies, but the tradition of their holiness and 
zeal still remains, and lingers like a halo on 
the old red hills where they are buried. It 
is worthy of consideration whether women 
as Class-leaders for women may not be called 
into service with the happiest results. 



WHAT FORM? 

ORIGINALLY, the number in a single 
Class was fixed at twelve. This was 
as many as one leader could properly care 
for under the old method of conducting the 
Class. He was expected to have a sort of 
sub-pastoral oversight of them during the 
week, and to catechise each one separately 
at each meeting concerning the state of his 
soul. The methodical mind of John Wesley 
is reflected in this arrangement. Everyman 
must have his place, and fill it. He wanted, 
not a mob, but an army of disciplined be- 
lievers. All at work, and all the time at it, 
was his motto. Methodism in that day was 
as compact as a Spartan phalanx. It was or- 
ganized and disciplined. It gained victories, 
and held its conquests. This form of organ- 
ization suited the conditions then existing. 
The results proved it. New Testament Chris- 
tianity never had a brighter day, or wielded 
greater power, than at this time, when the 

(74) 



What Form ? 75 

militant Methodists were thus banded to- 
gether. In the compact populations of En- 
gland and in. the cities of the United States 
this arrangement worked without difficulty 
or friction. But practical modifications were 
necessitated in other localities. The number 
of persons in a Class was often much greater, 
because of the lack of suitable leaders and 
other causes. It often happened that the 
only time at which the Church-members in 
country charges could be gotten together 
was on Sunday after preaching. After a 
short, warm sermon, the benediction was 
pronounced, the outsiders dispersed, the doors 
were closed, and scores of devout men and 
women told what the Lord had done for their 
souls, amid snatches of holy song, tears, and 
shouts, and hallelujahs. What memories 
cluster around these sacred occasions! On 
these tides of feeling young converts were 
swept out to sea, lost their timidity, and lifted 
their grateful voices in testimony to the 
power of Jesus to save from sin, and many a 
future captain of the Lord's host here first 
drew the sword of the Spirit. Many a 
doubting believer in the blaze of the Class- 



76 What Form ? 

meeting fervor saw the light which never 
grew dim. Many an aged saint received a 
fresh baptism from on high, and caught a 
brighter vision of the more excellent glory. 
The heart of the whole Church was there, 
and its mighty pulsations thrilled every mem- 
ber. The Class-meeting harrows in the seed 
sown in a gospel sermon, and quickens its 
germination and growth. 

Let this whole matter be regulated by the 
convenience of the parties involved, and by 
common sense. The greater the number of 
Class-leaders the better. The sub-division 
of the work makes it more effective. The 
office of a Class-leader is specially calculated 
to develop the best elements of the Christian 
character in the leader himself. It tends to 
make him a man of prayer, a student of the 
Bible and of human nature, ready in speech, 
and growingly alive to the worth of souls. 
There are in the Methodist Church thou- 
sands of men whose lives would blossom 
into new spiritual life, and be enriched with 
the fruits of enlarged usefulness, if the holy 
duties of the blessed work of the Class- 
leadership were laid upon them. In the 



What Form ? 77 

revival of the Class-meeting, which has be- 
gun, and will not stop, these men will be 
called upon to take this office and work. As 
they love the Lord Jesus Christ, as they love 
his Church, as they love their fellow-beings, 
as they love their own souls, let them not 
turn a deaf ear to that call! 

Where, from any cause, the services of a suf- 
ficient number of suitable men cannot be se- 
cured, let the Classes be larger. There is no 
necessity that all should speak at every meet- 
ing. Good listeners and good singers are very 
useful in a Class-meeting service. A sympa- 
thetic, prayerful hearer, is a stimulus to all 
who talk. You may be a listener at one 
meeting, and a speaker at the next. A hun- 
dred persons con Id be edified by a single 
leader who combined sound sense, tact, and 
energy, in his method of conducting the 
Class-meeting. 

But the difficulty of finding good Class- 
leaders will disappear whenever the Church 
puts her heart into this work. The great 
armies that lately shook this nation by their 
tread were officered from their own ranks. 
Soldiers had to be tried to find out whether 



78 What Form ? 

they were fit for command. Success was the 
test. So with the Church. We have the 
men for Class-leaders. Put them into the 
work. Those who fit it will develop the 
qualities needed. If any fail on trial, the 
pastor can choose others in their stead. 
Once get them to think about it, and our 
best men will covet this work — a work only 
second to the regular pastorate as a field for 
doing good, and for self-culture in the life of 
God, and which is at the same time not in- 
compatible with the s-uccessful pursuit of any 
legitimate secular calling. Let the lawyer 
and jurist bring his trained and sharpened 
intellect into the service of God and man 
in the Class-meeting; let the physician, like 
another beloved Luke, make his calling 
doubly sacred by ministering to the souls as 
well as the bodies of his fellow-beings; let the 
mechanic, whose genius rears the noble edi- 
fices that adorn our cities, also aid in building 
the living temples of human souls in which 
dwells the Holy Ghost; let the farmer be 
also a laborer in this spiritual harvest-field, 
where fruits of holiness are garnered for 
eternity; let the merchant engage in this 






What Form ? 79 

merchandise, which is more precious than 
gold or silver; let the statesman "bring his 
massive brain into a service where more than 
empires are at stake. The Head of the 
Church calls for its best men for this blessed 
work. Let no one refuse. 



THE WOMAN'S MEETING AT 
McKENDREE. 

F^EELING the need of some special serv- 
ice in which their Christian sympathies 
could have free expression, and their com- 
munion with each other be more satisfactory, 
and their aspirations for a fuller knowledge 
of God and a deeper spirituality be nour- 
ished, some ladies connected with McKen- 
dree Methodist Church, Nashville, Tennessee, 
agreed to meet once a week to carry out 
these desires. It was announced simply as 
"The Woman's Meeting," and no regular 
programme of exercises was at first indi- 
cated. A few elect ladies attended the serv- 
ice from week to week. Their interest in 
the exercises steadily increased, and their 
growth in knowledge and in grace was appar- 
ent. The exercises, though varying at their 
option, finally settled into something like 
this programme: 1. A hymn. 2. A prayer. 
3. Reading the Scripture. 4. The discussion 

(80) 



The Woman's Meeting at McKendree. 81 

of a Bible topic {'preciously announced) with 
relation to Christian experience. The meet- 
ing increased in numbers and in interest, 
until what was begun under a warm Chris- 
tian impulse as an experiment became one 
of the permanent institutions of that large 
and powerful Society. It is dearly cherished 
by the devout women who enjoy its benefits, 
and they will not be likely to let it die, at 
least for this generation. 

Is there not a hint here for us? Have we 
not here a fresh proof of the fact that ear- 
nest Christianity will express its desires and 
needs in some such way? 

This service has the essential characteris- 
tics of the Class-meeting — rather, perhaps, 
we should say the one essential of a Meth- 
odist Class-meeting — namely, the nurture of 
the Christian life.. The Bible topic is a new 
feature. Is not this a new element that will 
give new life and enhanced value to the 
Class-meeting in many places? The study 
of practical Bible truth, in its relation to the 
ever- varying exigencies of Christian experi- 
ence, furnishes the element of thoughtfulness 
which was felt by many to be lacking in the 
6 



82 The Woman s Meeting at McKenclree. 

Class-meeting of the past. The topic for the 
week, embodied often in a single verse of 
Scripture, is a golden thread upon which to 
hang the religious meditations of the inter- 
vening period. It is astonishing to find how 
a subject, thus held in the mind, will grow; 
running so long in the same direction, the 
thought cuts a deep channel. Thus the 
thoughtful, prayerful believer reaches the 
very heart of things. Thus the devout soul, 
meditating upon heavenly truth, meets sweet 
surprises by the discovery of deeper mean- 
ings and brighter vistas opening before his 
advancing feet. Infinite variety and peren- 
nial freshness are thus imparted to the Chris- 
tian life. As the source of religious thought 
is inexhaustible, and the appetite for it never 
cloys, but increases the more it is fed, here 
Ave find that which will make every true be- 
liever's experience as fresh as the dew of 
morning, and as unfailing as the river of 
God, which is full of water. 

But not only is the light of the Bible thus 
thrown upon the path of daily Christian ex- 
perience, but the light of experience is re- 
flected back upon the Bible. Who does not 



The Woman s Meeting at McKendree. 83 

know this to be so? The best Bible-class is 
a Class-meeting where devout and thought- 
ful men and women interpret the word of 
God by the light of their own experiences. 
The deepest truths of the Bible can be learned 
only in this way. The secret of the Lord is 
with them that fear him. He that will do his 
will shall know of the doctrine. The light 
flashes back and forth from the open Bible 
and the loving heart. This feature has been 
used with happy effect by the writer of these 
chapters, who is himself a Class-leader, happy 
in his work, and diligently seeking to find 
the best methods. The Bible Class-meeting 
is the very agency by which every Christian 
can surely grow in grace and in the knowl- 
edge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Xot Bible- 
class meetings, but Bible Class-meetings. 
The placing of the hyphen marks the differ- 
ence. 

The Class-meeting of the future will prob- 
ably take something of this form. But not 
everywhere, or necessarily. Leave it free to 
adapt itself to the varying conditions of 
human society, always keeping it clearly in 
mind that its prime object is the nurture and 



84 The Woman's Meeting at McKendree. 

development of the Christian life by the 
interchange of Christian thought and Chris- 
tian experience. Keeping this object ever 
in view, put no strait-jacket upon the Class- 
meeting. Much can be left to be deter- 
mined by the individuality of different lead- 
ers, the peculiar wants of different Societies, 
and the wise discretion of the pastors of the 
Churches. 



I 



YOU CAN IF YOU WILL. 

T has already been said that the Class- 
meeting cannot be killed, because it has 
its roots in the Bible and in the human soul. 
Not only among Methodists, but among all 
Christians, when they are alive to God, and 
earnest in the Christian life, some means of 
grace that has the essential characteristics 
of a Class-meeting will develop itself. The 
"experience-meetings," " inquiry-meetings," 
" conference - meetings," " Bible - meetings," 
and "promise-and-praise meetings" of other 
Churches, are the expression of a felt want, 
and a recognition of the scriptural obligation 
that binds Christians to exhort, comfort, and 
edify one another. In times of special re- 
ligious interest, this form of Christian devo- 
tion and fellowship is sure to manifest itself, 
in accordance with the law already alluded 
to, that the revival of the apostolic spirit 
and aggressive energy in the Church will 
bring with it the revival of apostolic usage 

(85) 



86 You Can if You Will. 

and methods. The question before us, then, 
is not whether the Class-meeting shall be 
established, for it already exists wherever 
Methodism has organized existence. It is 
not whether the Class-meeting shall be resus- 
citated, for there has been no suspension of 
its life. But it is, By what means shall it be 
recovered from its decline, and restored to 
its former vitality and power? 

The answer to this question has already in 
part been given indirectly in stating the 
causes that led to the decline of the Class- 
meeting. But the first thing to be done, if 
we would revive the Class- meeting, is to 
resolve to do it. God will not withhold his 
blessing now from what he once blessed so 
richly. His blessing would insure success to 
a proper effort. His own glory in the salva- 
tion of men and the progress of the gospel 
is involved in this holy enterprise. His 
Church is languishing for the lack of this 
means of grace. Souls are perishing for lack 
of the nurture which it would furnish. This 
great barrier removed, the world comes in 
upon the Church like a flood. This holy fire 
quenched, the lambs of Christ's flock freeze 






You Can if You Will. 87 

to death in the cold atmosphere of worldli- 
ness into which they are plunged. The mul- 
titudes are rushing into the follies of infidel- 
ity on the one hand, and the most groveling 
superstitions on the other, while the great 
hody of Christ's disciples are voiceless. May 
God awaken us all! 

The pastors should lead.- They are the 
overseers of the flock of Christ. The care 
of souls is their one w T ork. What subject is 
more worthy of their thoughts and prayers 
than this? In what way could they more 
effectually serve the Church than by giving 
themselves earnestly to the consideration of 
the means by which the spiritual life of its 
members shall be guarded, guided, and built 
up? There are no difficulties in the way of 
the revival of the Class-meeting that would 
not yield before the determined purpose and 
steady effort of the pastors of our Churches. 
The writer of these chapters has never had 
a pastoral charge without a Class-meeting. 
When the pastor resolves that he will have 
this means of grace for his people, the battle 
is already half won. 

" When do you hold your Class-meeting? " 



88 You Can if You Will. 

asked a preacher who had just arrived in a 
California mining-town in the early days. 

"Class-meeting! We have none. This 
is California, and you must not think you 
are in Georgia." 

"What! a Methodist Church without a 
Class-meeting? That will not do." 

The brother smiled incredulously, and said 
no more. 

On the next Sunday the young preacher, 
at the close of the morning service, made 
the following announcement: 

" I am surprised and grieved to learn that 
heretofore you have had no Class-meeting 
service in this Church. We must do better 
than that, my brethren. A Methodist Church 
without a Class-meeting lacks a most impor- 
tant means of grace, a feature peculiar to us 
as a people, and one which God hath won- 
derfully blessed. On Thursday evening you 
will please meet in the church for the pur- 
pose of organizing a Class -meeting. The 
service will begin at half-past seven o'clock. 
Please be punctual to the time, and as our 
membership is small at best, I hope every one 
will make it a point to attend." 



You Can if You Will. 89 






Thursday evening came. The young 
preacher lighted the lamps in the church, 
arranged the little table in the -altar,"' 
selected a chapter and a hymn for use in the 
opening, and waited for the brethren and 
sisters, his wife sitting on one of the pews 
facing him. There they sat in silence, and 
waited. The light was dim, the stillness pro- 
found, and the minutes flew by. At length 
it was eight o'clock, and nobody had come. 

" They seem to be late getting here," said 
the young preacher, rather solemnly. 

"Yes, they are late," answered his wife. 

Still they sat and waited, gazing seriously 
at each other in the dim light, and the min- 
utes flew by. Half-past eight came, and no- 
body had come. 

"They seem to be very late in coming," 
observed the preacher. 

" Yes, they are very late," answered his 
wife. 

And still they sat and gazed at one an- 
other, and waited, and the light seemed to 
be dimmer. Xine o'clock came, nobody had 
come, and for the first time the thought en- 
tered the young preacher's mind that nobody 



90 You Can if You Will 

would come. The idea took him aback for 
a moment, but his heart was set on having a 
Class -meeting; he was absorbed with that 
one feeling. So he rose and addressed his 
wife — 

"We have met to hold a Class-meeting; 
and, though nobody else has come, we need 
not be disappointed. It may look like a 
mere form for me to interrogate you con- 
cerning your spiritual experience, but " 

Here the affair seemed to strike the lady 
in a ludicrous way, and she began to shake 
with suppressed laughter, perceiving which 
the young preacher said, sternly — 

"Sarah, we are holding a Class-meeting !" 

This somehow made matters worse. She 
almost laughed outright. Once more he 
said, more sternly than before — 

"Do you remember where you are, and 
what we are here for? We are holding a 
Class-meeting! Let us pray," he added, and 
down they kneeled. 

Full of his subject, the young preacher 
had "liberty" in that prayer, and when they 
rose from their knees his wife, who was a 
truly religious woman, and a good Methodist, 



You Can if You Will 91 

was fully sobered. The young preacher, now 
thorough]} 7 aroused, stood upon his feet, told 
his experience, and exhorted with great en- 
ergy, oblivious of every thing except that he 
was holding a Class -meeting, and having a 
good time. Dismissing in due form, the meet- 
ing ended. 

Next Sunday, at the close of the morning 
service, he said — 

" We had a good Class-meeting last Thurs- 
day evening. The attendance was not large, 
but the exercises were very interesting and 
profitable. We will meet again next Thurs- 
day evening, at half-past seven o'clock." 

That settled the matter. The ice was 
broken. It was demonstrated that a Class- 
meeting could be held even in the mines of 
California. At the next meeting a nice little 
company of Methodists were present, and 
the exercises were full of interest, and the 
little band left the house with glowing hearts 
and renewed strength. Thenceforth there 
was no difficulty about the Class - meet- 
ing. It grew in every good sense of the 
word. A canny Scotchman, who had been 
trained under Bishop Keener in the good old 



92 You Can if You Will. 

days, was made Class-leader. He was con- 
verted by reading "John Nelson's Journal," 
and his religion was of Nelson's fervent and 
fearless type. From that Class two young 
men went forth as preachers in the Pacific 
Conference, one of whom, after a short but 
earnest and fruitful ministry, finished his 
course with joy, and the other is still a 
watchman on Zion's walls, a man of great 
usefulness, honored and loved by his brethren. 
The point of this personal narrative is that 
every Methodist pastor can have a Class- 
meeting if he will. 



THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 

AS matters now stand, a large proportion 
of young persons, on joining the 
Church, have nearly every thing to learn with 
regard to its forms, usages, and activities. 
Some come from irreligious families in which 
they have had no opportunity to learn any 
thing of religious matters. Even the children 
of religious parents often exhibit astonishing 
ignorance of these things. The home influ- 
ence and instruction are too^nild to leave 
any strong and lasting impressions upon 
their minds. They are never taught what 
are the doctrines, government, and history 
of their Church. They never read a chapter 
of its Book of Discipline. They have heard 
but little religious conversation, and that 
little has been of a conventional and frag- 
mentary nature. They have had little or 
no knowledge of religion, except that which 
they have heard from the pulpit, or absorbed 
by casual contact with religious people and 

(93) 



94 The Young People. 

religious literature. Confined to the routine 
of attendance on Sunday-preaching, where 
they hear two sermons, and the weekly 
prayer-meeting, where they hear a chapter 
read from the Bible, and listen to two or 
three prayers by their seniors, what develop- 
ment of spiritual gifts or increase of spiritual 
life can be expected ? They take their places 
with the dumb and half-alive throngs whose 
names swell the census of Church-members, 
but who are scarcely more felt in the way of 
Christian influence than so many men of 
straw. The glow of their first love cools. 
The current %i their religious life ceases to 
flow, and becomes a dead sea without a rip- 
ple of fresh spiritual impulse, or aspiration, 
or energy. What they w T ant is the Class- 
meeting. There they will find expression 
and enlargement of their religious thought. 
There they will enjoy the inestimable advan- 
tage to be derived from the wise counsels and 
warm sympathies of holy men and women 
who have studied heavenly things in the 
light of the Bible and in the school of expe- 
rience. There they learn the language of 
Zion, and in the freedom of that sacred cir- 



The Young Peojjle. 95 

cle they are trained for service in all the de- 
votional exercises in which the followers of 
Jesus testify for him and work for the salva- 
tion of souls. A great company of living 
witnesses, devout men and women, who be- 
gan their Christian courses before the Class- 
meetinsj waned, would testify that to it more 
than to any and all other means of grace 
they are indebted for the influence that gave 
stability, practical direction, vigor, and joy 
to their lives. In answer to direct inquiry, 
the writer has heard this testimony from so 
many of the strong men and holy women of 
the generation now passing oft' the stage, 
that he cannot doubt the truth of the sweep- 
ing statement made in the foregoing sen- 
tence. 

Shall young persons be put into separate 
Classes, or mingled with older persons? It 
would not be wise to answer hastily or dog- 
matically. The obvious benefits to be derived 
by young persons from contact with the ripe 
judgment and varied experience of older 
ones have already been alluded to. On the 
other hand, there is a freedom and ease 
among; vouno- Christian friends that they 



96 The Young People. 

rarely feel in the presence of gray hairs. At 
Santa Rosa, California, the pastor of the 
Church formed a " Young People's Class," 
which met on Saturday afternoon. The 
average number attending was twenty — at 
times it was considerably larger. These 
young people were of both sexes, ranging 
from twenty -five down to about fourteen 
years of age. A large part of them were 
young converts, the fruit of a revival that 
will be remembered, by some of them, at 
least, through time and eternity. This Class- 
meeting had the happiest effect upon them 
all. It made a Christian atmosphere warm 
with the glow of young life, and bright with 
the holy light of Christian friendship. If 
these pages should meet the eye of any one 
of that band, now scattered over the world, 
they will read these lines with swelling 
hearts, and perchance with misty eyes. They 
will never forget their Saturday Class-meet- 
ing. Among the members of this Class 
there was a notable religious development. 
!Not only in the gift of utterance, not only 
in readiness in song and fluency and ferven- 
cy in prayer, but in earnest thought and 






The Young People. 97 

fruitful reflection on religious topics, did 
these young Christians show rapid and steady 
progress. And it was joyfully recognized on 
all sides that their reflex influence upon the 
whole Church was most happily felt in all its 
worship and in all its activities. A delighted 
old brother, who attended one of the meet- 
ings, said to the leader, " Why, your Young 
People's Class could run a camp-meeting!" 
And so they could. They had gained in their 
Class -meeting the training that qualified 
them to bear a part in any service for the 
Church in its regular worship or special ag- 
gressive movements upon society. The prin- 
ciple upon which this Class was conducted 
was, that each member should bring to its 
weekly meeting his best thought and best 
experience for the week. Growth in knowl- 
edge and in grace were kept before them as 
the aim of a true Christian life. Bible-texts 
bearing upon the practical aspects of religion 
were sometimes suggested by the leader as 
threads upon which to hang the meditations 
of the ensuing week. At other times each 
member was requested to bring a verse of 
Scripture relating to some great fact or doc- 
7 



98 The Young People. 

trine of revelation. But religious experience 
was always the goal to which all the exer- 
cises were directed, and it was delightful to see 
how absolutely free from stiffness, constraint, 
or false timidity, were these young Chris- 
tians in these discussions of divine truth and 
interchanges of Christian experience. Now 
and then the leader would invite the pres- 
ence of Dan. Duncan, a local preacher, whose 
almost seraphic face, sweet humility, and 
chastened joyousness of spirit, made him 
welcome in all circles, and it was very pleas- 
ant to see how completely such a man could 
throw himself into the spirit of the occa- 
sion, and how heartily the young disciples 
welcomed one who walked in the light of 
the Lord, and whose soul was kept peren- 
nially fresh with the influx of the life of 
God. He too was a Class -leader, and he 
was one who magnified his office, and loved 
the Class-meeting as the very gate of heaven. 



THIRTY THOUSAND CLASS- 
LEADERS. 

THERE are about thirty thousand Meth- 
odist preachers in the United States. 
There ought to be at least as many Class- 
leaders. Think of it! Thirty thousand 
men in an office most favorable to their own 
spiritual development. Thirty thousand men 
in training for the highest usefulness. Thir- 
ty thousand men devoted specially to re- 
ligious self-culture and the study and nurt- 
ure of the religious life in others. What 
could not such a body of men do under God? 
Who does not want to see the clay when all 
this goodly company of Class-leaders shall 
be at work? Who would be willing to re- 
nounce the hope of such a consummation? 
Where is the Methodist layman who would 
not feel honored and blessed in being one of 
these thirty thousand? 

Thirty thousand men engaged in the study 
of spiritual phenomena, as exhibited in the 

(99) 



100 Thirty Thousand Class-leaders. 

development of the religious life of the mem- 
bers of their Classes, would be just so many 
men at school acquiring the knowledge that 
would make them wise to win souls. In the 
Class-meeting there is opportunity for obser- 
vation of this sort not furnished anywhere 
else. The Class-leader can compare the mental 
states of the same person in the progressive 
movement of the religious life. In this the 
Class-meeting differs from the Love-feast, the 
prayer-meeting, or even the study of theol- 
ogy. The Class -leader whose interest is 
quickened by love to his Class, and kept 
alive by a deep sense of responsibility for 
their welfare, gets what no books can give — 
a knowledge of the workings of the human 
heart in the midst of the actual conflicts and 
changing conditions of life. Many Class- 
leaders have gone into the ministry carrying 
with them preparation for dealing with the 
practical aspects of the pastoral work that 
they could have gotten in no other way. At 
the early age of sixteen John B. McFerrin 
was made a Class-leader, and threw himself 
into that work with youthful enthusiasm 
und characteristic energy. This early expe- 



Thirty Thousand Class-leaders. 101 

Hence affected happily his whole subsequent 
life. It gave a practical bias to his mind in 
dealing with religious questions. It made 
his theology of the concrete order. It devel- 
oped that readiness and tact in dealing with 
men for which he has been distinguished. 
It accustomed him at the very beginning 
of his long career to bear heavy responsi- 
bilities and to carry burdens. It gave to 
his preaching a directness and spirituality 
that reflected the spirit of the Class-meeting 
service. And he is one of many preachers 
whose best theological study and preparatory 
training were found in the Class-meeting as 
it existed fifty years ago. The preachers of 
the past generation were spiritually wiser 
because of the Class-meeting. There they 
obtained a spiritual insight that supplement- 
ed their own experiences; and not unfre- 
quently revelations were made to them in 
the Class-meeting that changed the whole of 
their after-lives. The Eev. George W. Nolley, 
of the Virginia Conference, in his early min- 
istry, heard the testimony of a woman in a 
Class-meeting that gave him new and higher 
views of the Christian life — views which he 



102 Thirty Thousand Class-leaders. 

has retained unto this day, and which grew 
with his spiritual growth, and strengthened 
with his spiritual strength. Bishop Morris, of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Bishop 
Marvin, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, were largely indebted to the Class- 
meeting for the influence that brought them 
to Jesus and into the Church, and that made 
their ministry so fruitful of blessing to the 
world. 

Thirty thousand Class- leaders would be- 
come the very strongest spiritual support of 
the pastors. Their office is so distinctly re- 
ligious that it tends to make theirs the fair- 
est, clearest minds in all temporal discussions 
and policy in the quarterly meetings and 
other official bodies. Their work is so al- 
lied in character to that of the pastors that 
they can readily enter into their feelings and 
plans, and so become their safe advisers and 
cordial co-workers. 

Thirty thousand Class-leaders would fur- 
nish the very help needed in the spiritual 
oversight of a spiritual Church. Mark the 
expression: the spiritual oversight of a 
spiritual Church. It suggests the princi- 



Thirty Thousand Class-leaders. 103 

pie that is the very core of the Class-meet- 
ing. 

Thirty thousand Class leaders would hold 
steadily to their Church-allegiance and relig- 
ious duties a class of persons who, in the 
change of pastors, necessitated by our wise 
and apostolic itinerant system, are exposed 
to the seductions of proselyters and the dan- 
ger which threatens the sheep in the absence 
of the shepherd. The Class-meeting gives 
Methodism the benefits of a settled spiritual 
oversight combined with an itinerant minis- 
try. These two elements of efficiency were 
simultaneously developed in the order of 
the providence of God. What he hath thus 
joined together, and so signally blessed, let 
not our blindness and folly put asunder. 

Thirty thousand Class-meetings would fur- 
nish places where plain men of God could 
work for the Church without the surrender 
of temporal engagements, and without any 
special preparation except a saving faith, 
good common sense, and a zeal according to 
knowledge. Can the Church afford to lose 
the service these men could render? Is she 
willing to wrap up all this talent in a napkin 



104 Thirty Thousand Class-leaders. 

and bury it? Not until she is ready to smoth- 
er out her spiritual life and make ready for 
her own burial as a dead Church! 

Thirty thousand Class -leaders would re- 
cruit from their ranks the Christian minis- 
try. Nothing could be better calculated to 
reveal to a man and to the Church his apti- 
tude for the pastoral work than the Class- 
leadership. The Class - meeting would be 
more than ever a school of the prophets. 
From the Class-leadership would enter the 
ministerial ranks the very sort of preachers 
needed for the times — men of intense spirit- 
uality, men whose love for souls is a burning 
passion, men whose knowledge of heavenly 
things is experimental, men of practical wis- 
dom and aggressive energy. 

Thirty thousand Class-leaders, such as will 
be found if we seek them prayerfully, would 
arrest the present tendency to formality and 
worldliness, would rekindle the hres of Holy 
Ghost religion in tens of thousands of cold 
hearts, and once more confront a brazen and 
defiant infidelity with a Christianity con- 
scious of the presence, and armed with the 
power, of God. 









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